From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Tue 22 Feb 2005 - 14:02:30 GMT
At 08:53 AM 22/02/05 +0100, you wrote:
> >The main argument against group selection is that it does not close the <br>
> >causal loop, mainly against free loaders taking advantage of
> others. Now<br>
> >if the group is *also* your relatives, the loop does close.<br>
><br>
>I agree. If the group is completely inbred and effectively keeps outsiders
>out, then kin selection and group selection will be the same. The problem
>is that even a small immigration of egoists or back-mutation can destroy
>the scheme because the egoists can outcompete the altruists inside the group.
That depends on other genes such as "kill the slackers." :-)
In actuality, slackers tend to be bred out of the species because males
have to hunt to obtain enough status to be attractive to females.
Another factor is that relatives are always valuable to your genes. That's
why people have children and take care of sibs and to a smaller extent the
extended members of your tribe, most of which were (in the EES) related to
you. Even if you were adopted into a tribe from a far away one, people
have mental mechanisms that get activated so you consider these unrelated
people as if they were related.
In fact, we have *specific* mechanisms, capture-bonding, that bonds newly
captured tribe members (usually women) into the tribe. That's the
mechanism activated in army basic training.
>My simulations show that the topology (or geographics) og migration plays
>a significant role. If immigrants come only from nearby groups and group
>selection is sufficiently strong then the altruist gene can become fixated
>in an increasing geographic area. But if immigrants can come from distant
>groups then the altruism gene tends to win.
Win or lose?
>This is one of the problems with earlier models. They simplify their
>models in order to make them mathematically tractable, and these
>simplified models can't handle the topology. This is why I have to use
>similation. Also, it won't work without random genetic drift, which most
>traditional models ignore.
><br>
>The species that have the strongest altruism, i.e. social insects and
>naked mole rat, are ferociously keeping foreign intruders out. This is
>necessary for group selection to work.
I don't exactly understand your argument here. It seems to me you are
arguing for Hamilton's gene based evolution of altruism rather than
competition and selection at the group level.
If so, I agree of course.
Keith Henson
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